Friday Opinuendo: On moon water, holey streets and late snow

Scientists announced on Thursday that they had discovered "a vast ocean beneath the icy surface of Saturn's little moon Enceladus" (named after a giant in Greek mythology).

As the Associated Press reported: "This new ocean of liquid water -- as big as or even bigger than North America's Lake Superior -- is centered at the south pole of Enceladus and could encompass much if not most of the moon."

The discovery came via the exploratory unmanned spaceship Cassini, which launched in 1997 and entered Saturn's orbit in 2004.

A researcher said the sea on Enceladus is some 25 miles deep under ice that's miles thick.

By first-hand experience and the powers of observation vested in Minnesota journalists, we predict that when the ice melts, Cassini will also discover an empty schnapps bottle, a rake, rusty tricycle, old tennis shoe, six buttons from a snowman's smile, a soggy newspaper, evidence of canine life and the missing keys.

Decay!

St. Paul has a new light-rail line, but old, holey streets.

This week, Mayor Chris Coleman said it would cost $70 million to re-do St. Paul's 20 worst streets, and he called for more funding from state and federal lawmakers.

Whether they're state or federal or local lawmakers, they get the money to build roads from us users and taxpayers (or taxpayers' children and grandchildren; there's enough federal debt to last for generations).

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And one of the biggest barriers to proper public priority-setting is the puzzle of designated buckets into which and out of which public dollars flow. This fund is only for this, that fund only for that. Turf for a high-school football field comes from a different bucket than pay for a music teacher. In Minnesota, we've made spending for parks and trails a higher priority -- it's in the Constitution! -- than spending on nursing homes. Road money comes from road funds.

But when your streets get as junky as some of ours, the time has come for a resetting of priorities -- some rebucketing. If we could figure out how to spend a billion dollars on a light-rail line down an already-built-out city corridor, surely we can figure out how to re-do a few streets.